


Chasing Blue Skies

by aydyl



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Drabbles, F/M, Various AUs
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-06
Updated: 2018-05-04
Packaged: 2018-12-24 19:49:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 14
Words: 1,400
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12019764
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aydyl/pseuds/aydyl
Summary: 14. Affection (canon)Caryl-centric collection of drabbles.





	1. Birth [canon]

**Author's Note:**

> I haven't written anything for a very long time, and am very new to this fandom. To get myself back into the swing of things, I'm going through the list I found [here](https://100themewriters.deviantart.com/art/Emotions-125161153), as 100-word drabbles. There are many amazing drabble collections for Caryl floating around AO3, please check them out! And enjoy!

Turns out birthing is much like killing - a rough business, stinking of sweat and blood. Tension in his belly and muscles taut as bowstrings, watching helplessly as she heaves through it all.

She relaxes for a moment, sinking into the blanket. Eyes flickering open, finding him. He wants to speak, to encourage, but is too choked. Instead, rests his forehead against hers. Closes his eyes and breathes with her. Wonders, for the millionth time, how this will end.

When it’s done, though, lusty screams of life mingle with her exhausted breathing and push joy through his veins like a sunrise.


	2. Enthusiasm [canon]

She’s giggling, giddy as a child. _I don’t even like chocolate_ , she gasps, shrugging the last bar out of the wrapper and all but stuffing it into her mouth. He half-smiles, takes a long drag.

He tenses as she rests her head on his shoulder, but she just sighs and nestles in closer. She’s drunk on sugar, and his blood thumps. _This feels normal_ , she whispers, as he breathes smoke into the icy air.

 _For someone who dun’t like chocolate_ , he mutters, toeing the empty wrappers by his feet. She snorts with laughter. He takes another drag, drunk on her.


	3. Love [canon]

_Get outta here_. He’s yelling at her, crossbow up, eyes fixed on the door. Circles round, until he is standing between her and the groans shuffling up from the shadows.

She takes a shuddering breath and draws her weapon, takes her stance. She can feel her blood beating through her body; can hear it roaring in her ears. She wishes he would move, but he is just yelling. Shuffling her backward. _Go, get out._

There’s no more time. The dead drag forward. She hoists her gun, grips her knife. She pushes back. Slips past. Stands beside him. _Not without you_.


	4. Hate [canon]

It’s not much, but there’s not much left these days. Just scraps of colour amid the greys, and even that has rotted away to a shadow of what it was.

It’s a bit of ribbon, is all. Bright orange, and frayed. He supposes it could remind her of the sunset, or some other crap like that. He stuffs it into his pocket and carries on moving.

He pulls it out later when they’re laying in their bunk, and holds it to the light. She smiles and ties it round her wrist. It’s never enough, but it’s all there is left.


	5. Triumph [canon]

The bolt slams into the tree and the young buck darts away, a stripe of gold in the evening light. Daryl hisses. Can't go back with a runty squirrel to his name; not enough to feed himself, forget the rest of them.

The memory hovers, and his fingers slip against the bolt as he wrenches it free. A sweet heat on his jawline. His fingertips on his cheek before he realises what he is doing, crossbow hanging limp by his side and a fox peeping through the undergrowth, within range and gone before he can pull his senses back together.


	6. Feel [canon]

Red heat, and blurs of people across the room – or next to him, he can’t tell, his eyes won’t stop racing round their sockets. Feels like being jacked on good pot, but when did anyone last touch that stuff, and it’s getting too hard to think. Wants to pull his skin right off and dive into freezing water. Someone touches him and it feels like knives.

And then it’s later. Much later, from what he can tell, because it is her laying a damp rag on his hot forehead. It is her gentle hands cooling his skin. He sleeps, then.


	7. Wrecked [au - high school]

Knows he shouldn’t be looking. Knows that. He scuffs his beat-up trainer against the pavement and squints up. Just gets lost in those pretty red curls, golden sunshine beating off them. Ain’t never seen anything as pretty as that, not in his whole life.

So lost he doesn’t hear anything until he’s sprawled in the road, and then it’s the laughing and jeering and Merle’s roar of rage. Gets hauled to his feet just as sudden, launches himself at the idiot school kids. Can’t bear to look at her. Nah, ain’t got no business looking at a girl like that.


	8. Soft [canon]

He’s smiling above her, weight resting on his forearms and firelight flickering off the creases and shadows on his face. Eyes squinting and glittering as he looks at her like she’s the sun, not some beat-up, worn out lady at the end of the world. She runs her fingertips down the hard muscle of his shoulders, muscle that kills and protects and rages, and sees his expression shift.

His kiss is soft and slow. She feels his skin trembling beneath her fingers, and knows it is _her_. It is her that makes him sweet at the end of the world.


	9. Cold [au - modern]

She sneezes and blows her nose pathetically, the couch littered with used tissues and rugs piled so high he can barely see her. He’s packed the kids off long ago, not trusting her frayed nerves against Soph’s newfound teenage attitude.

 _Hey._ She just sneezes again and groans wretchedly. He snorts and sets down a steaming bowl within reach. _Attractive, that_.

She huffs and swipes tissues against her running nose and streaming eyes. _S’that?_

 _Chicken soup. S’meant to be good for you._ She tries for a smile, but it comes out as an almighty sneeze. _Geez, woman, gonna wake the dead._


	10. Without [au - high school]

_What?!_ The rage he feels is pushing the words out of his mouth like missiles, fists clenched white. _Ain’t like we’re together. Ain’t like your prissy friends gonna see us walkin’ down the street_.

The colour high on her cheeks, she darts forward, eyes flashing. For a stupid second, he thinks she’s gonna slap him, but she just grabs his wrist. _What’s that supposed to mean?_ she asks, and he’s too far gone to hear the confusion.

 _Heard ya_. He wrenches his wrist free. _Talkin’ to Peletier_. Turns away, can’t look at her. _Seen the way ya look at him_.


	11. Inspiration [canon au - daemons]

_Get back over here_ , he snarls. Wolf just flicks her ears, shuffling forward. Never done a thing he’s said anyway. _Embarrassin’ us both._ Can’t help but look at Carol though, check she’s safe within the warm glow of the firelight, people chattin’ quietly either side.

Arlo’s not much better, his thick tail wrapped around Carol’s ankles and peeping out between her feet at them like he’s the shyest thing goin’, but Daryl’s seen him when he’s riled. All up on his hind legs and claws out. She nudges Arlo back behind her feet.

Carol’s gaze meets Daryl’s, and she smiles.


	12. You [selkie au]

She slips out of his nets along with the fishes, limbs bright white and marbled blue and the purple blush of bruises on her hips. Rain spitting ice across her skin, ribs like twigs. She’s naked, her hair a streaming silver tangle. His cigarette hangs limply between his lips, unable to believe his eyes as gills seal shut along her translucent skin.

Her lips flutter, pulling him to his sense. He curses, sliding across the deck and pressing his fist to her chest. Water pumps out her mouth and nose and she hacks in air like she’s born to it.


	13. Confused [canon]

She doesn’t think about it anymore. It had been a fleeting idea, back at the prison. A flirtation to while away the hours, seeing how much she could make him blush, and then surprising herself at the spark of delight in her own belly when he did.

Now, she doesn’t think. It’s easier that way, to hide in mundanities and nothingness. So, to hear the Kingdom women chattering like geese about _her_ and Daryl forces her to laugh in a way she hasn’t for a while; to bite her lip against the weight of memories dragged out from the fog.


	14. Affection [canon]

She died a long time ago, that’s what she thinks. Back when her baby girl dragged herself out of the barn on a sunny afternoon and Rick did her the kindness of shooting her brains out. After that, she just existed and survived and clawed her way through.

But now, she stands in a puddle of sunlight and he is wrapping his arms around her. She leans back and he takes her weight, lips falling to the curve of her shoulder. She feels his kiss through her clothes. He smells of sweat and oil, a life hard won and earned.


End file.
